Set Me Free
by Jessi - Princess of Impatience
Summary: A strange injured owl has been shadowing Sarah window, but she learns the truth of his presence and the way her world is about to change. Eventually JS romance, WIP.H, Ch2 up 7.20.05
1. The Nightly Visitor

_A/N: This idea popped into my head during my first attempts with "Your Eyes," and would not go away. I'm sure it has been done before, but I'm really happy with the idea and hope it will make a truly enjoyable story in my own words. _

_Disclaimer: I do not own any characters from the movie Labyrinth. The Labyrinth characters and events in the movies belong to Jim Henson, may he rest in peace as his legacy lives on through all of us. I seek to make no profit from this venture and I promise to return everything back the way I found it. _

* * *

Set Me Free  
Story by Jessica Arbuckle (Jessi, Princess of Impatience)  
June - undetermined, 2005 

**Chapter One, The Nightly Visitor…**

Sarah sat on her bed, her mind completely concentrating on her chemistry book, when she heard the gentle flapping of wings.

The white barn owl was back again, watching her as she did her homework in her bed. It had done this for the past six nights, but never let her get close. She put the book and her notebook down and crept slowly to the window. If only it would stay this time. It looked like it had a bad wound that might finally be healing and she wanted to make sure it was ok.

"It's ok," she called to it softly as she slowly opened the window. "I just want to make sure you are ok."

It was odd, the way the owl kept appearing at her window. The first time she had been afraid. After all, that was his form, but after it had flown away as soon as she reached for it, she had convinced herself it was a normal owl, simply curious, but still scared of humans.

She reached the windowsill and stopped, letting it get used to her presence. The owl stared at her, but its wide eyes that usually looked unblinkingly at her were slightly hooded from her scrutiny. The bright gold of what she could see was a strangely smoky color, still gold but darkened somehow, and she wondered at it.

"Come on, I can see that you are hurt, just come closer so I can see if you are ok," she pleaded with it softly. Amazingly, the bird turned so she could see the wound, almost as if it understood. She breathed a sigh of relief to see the wound was indeed healing

"That's good, very good. Oh, you poor thing, I wonder how you ended up hurt," she said kindly and the owl uttered a soft sound as it tilted its head to one side.

"I do believe if you could answer me, you would. Of course, I know you can't. If you were Jareth, I know you wouldn't be hanging out as an owl… oh dear God!" she cried as the owl lurched precariously on the branch. Its eyes opened wide and she could see the smoky gold was now tinted a strange color, almost if the color was shifting from gold to something else. She reached for the bird, praying to catch it if it fell, but it opened its wings wide and glided off at an odd angle, almost crashing to the ground before gaining altitude and disappearing into the night.

"Oh dear, I hope it isn't sick. Maybe it wasn't well at all, even though the wound was healing," she muttered and stayed at the window for another hour, waiting to see if it would come back. Finally, when she could not hold her eyes open any longer, she went to bed.

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The next day, Sarah was worried about more than just the owl.. She had been in contact frequently with her friends from the Labyrinth, every few days for the last six months she had been back, but they hadn't answered her calls or come on their own in almost a month now.

She walked to the vanity and sat, calling softly to the mirror, as she did every night, "Hoggle, I need you."

This time, Hoggle appeared shortly after, looking panicked.

"Sarah, we've got trouble," Hoggle said nervously.

"What? Did something happen to Sir Didymus? Ludo? Where have you been!"

"No, Sarah… it's the Labyrinth. It's dying. I wasn't sure before this but I'm certain now. Everything has gotten much worse recently. And even without that, the goblins are running amok and destroying the place!"

"Why didn't you tell me about this before? How is this happening?" Sarah said, feeling an unnamed fear rise up in her. Something wasn't right and she could feel it.

"I'm sorry I didn't tell you before this, but I wasn't sure and I didn't want to worry you. Besides, this is all because that rat of a Goblin King has disappeared!" Hoggle said disgustedly.

"Ja.. The Goblin King wouldn't just leave Hoggle," Sarah said, stumbling to cover up the fact she had been about to say his name. "When was the last time anyone saw him?"

"The last time I saw him, he was that owl he turns into and he came flying out of that stairway you disappeared into. When we couldn't find you, we went looking in the castle and that's how we found the mirror we use when we talk to you, except that one stopped working after the last time we talked. Luckily, I found another today that the goblins hadn't managed to destroy and I brought it back here. I was just hanging it up and getting ready to try and call you when you called me."

'Ohgodohgodohgod,' her mind cried after Hoggle's first comment. She wouldn't look at the window to see if it was there. It was just a common barn owl after all, that is why it flew away every time she tried to reach for it. She tried desperately to convince herself that the only reason the owl came to the tree outside every night for the last week was that the yard must be a great place for a meal.

'Suck it up and look Sarah,' she admonished herself sternly. It probably would not be there anyways. It had definitely seemed ill when it had practically fallen off the branch last night and she had no way of knowing if it was even still alive.

"Sarah?" Hoggle questioned at the look on her face.

"Just a second," she whispered, and forced herself to look up at the window where she was sure the owl would not be. Yet there it was, as close to her window as it could be, its eyes wide and unblinking. Instead of the bright gold they had been, or the smoky gold, or even the weirdly tinted gold, they were clear and distinctly two different colors, one crystal blue and the other a smoky green. Two mismatched eyes, intently staring her down as it sat imperiously on the branch, closer than it had ever been before. The same set of eyes that haunted her dreams.

She gasped and wrenched her gaze from the owl's back to Hoggle. "Hoggle, I have to go, but I'll call you again as soon as I can," she said quickly, looking panicked.

"Sarah, what's the matter? What about the Labyrinth?" Hoggle asked, the look on her face filling him with dread.

"Trust me. I'll call for you again tonight as soon as I can and we will fix everything. I think I may have something for you when I do," she said and watched as the connection was broken and the mirror again reflected only her image.

She slowly turned back to the window, finding the owl still staring at her. She slowly walked to the window and opened it, leaning on the sill to peer suspiciously at the white bird just outside. 'It is not Jareth, it is not Jareth,' she chanted silently.

"So you're back," she said, giving it a once over. "I hope your wound is still healing after that stunt you tried last night."

The bird quickly moved so she could see the wound. Examining it, she could tell it had split open again and was once again trying to knit back together.

"Oh dear," she cried, reaching for the bird. It allowed her to touch its body and her fingers gently probed the wound. The bird shuddered and she could tell it was in pain.

"I'm sorry. I wish I knew how to help you, but I don't have much experience mending wounded owls." The owl blinked at her and its mismatched eyes shone with something unreadable. Mismatched eyes. In her panic over the wound, that bit of information had taken a back seat in her mind but now it was right there.

"This is insane," Sarah cried to the owl as it stared at her unblinking. "This is not happening. This is truly not happening. There is no way the ruler of the Goblin King is a wounded owl in my tree. You are just a normal owl!" The owl snapped at her, its eyes glittering with ill-concealed contempt and she sighed.

"Fine, you win, you certainly have his temper," she groused. "Although, if you're Jareth, I don't know why you're hanging outside my window instead of fixing your kingdom." That was when she noticed the sparkle in the owl's talon. She offered her hand to the owl again and this time it settled onto her forearm, balancing on one foot as it clutched a bundle of fabric, with something shiny winking faintly in the light, in the other. Sarah back up slightly from the window and reached for the bundle, her curiosity getting the better of her. The bird released part of the fabric and a crystal fell into her hand.

"Oh no, nuh uh! I'm not falling for this," she said sternly to the bird on her hand. It snapped at her, then sharply turned to the crystal and pecked it. It shattered into millions of flecks of glitter and Sarah felt a warmth spread up her arm and across her body. Looking down, she found a piece of parchment in her hand.

"To the one who holds this note," she read aloud. "You have defeated the Labyrinth and with it, the King. You are now the rightful ruler of the Labyrinth, the Goblin City and the castle beyond, and all the lands that are a part of the kingdom. The owl that bore this crystal is the once proud Goblin King. As punishment for his wrongdoing, if he ever lost he would be cursed to his occasional owl form permanently, as well as cursed to give up his magic and kingdom to the one who defeated him. Only you, now the bearer of his magic, are able to set him free. If you choose to do so, you must discover the secret on your own."

"You have got to be kidding me," she said, dropping the note. She regarded the white bird perched on her forearm, its eyes wide and, she would have sworn, deeply mocking. "Jareth? It's really you?"

The owl hooted, preening. "Well," she said with a laugh, "you certainly peeved someone off, didn't you? Or did something very, very bad. They probably just did it because of the way you cheat," she grumped at him. The owl tightened his grip on her arm slightly painfully.

"Hey, hey! I was just kidding," she said, tapping at his talon forcefully. "Knock that off!" The owl relented, mismatched eyes glittering almost wickedly.

"So how did you get yourself into this anyways? Never mind, I know you can't answer that," she said as she walked to the bed to sit down. "This ought to prove for stimulating conversation. At least I can get away with saying anything I like without your singularly unhelpful and sarcastic comments." At this the owl hooted loudly, flapping a wing to bop her soundly on the head.

"Ouch! This is all your fault, you know," she said to the bird as she transferred it from her arm to the bed and rubbed her head with her free hand. The owl snapped, pinching the skin of her hand lightly. Not enough to pierce her skin with its sharp beak, but enough to hurt slightly and get her attention.

"Oh, shut up," she said to the owl, fully aware it had not spoken. "I know this is my fault. I should have never wished Toby away. You should have told me, though. I would have found another way to save Toby so you didn't get stuck as an owl and keep us out of this mess." The owl regarded her with a look that Sarah clearly took to mean 'yeah, right' – or perhaps something else not nearly as nicely phrased. It was truly hard to read an owl after all, even one with the expressive mismatched eyes of Jareth.

She sighed and flung herself back on the bed. This was truly a mess of catastrophic proportions! "What do I know about running a kingdom anyways?" she muttered under her breath. A heavy weight settled on her abdomen and she lifted her head to see the owl perched on her stomach, looking down at her.

"What?" she asked. "It's true. I may have beat the Labyrinth, but that doesn't mean I can bully goblins and snatch little children. Oooof," she moaned as the owl bounced hard on her stomach.

She glared at it – 'him' she corrected herself mentally. "You really are such a brat, you know that?" The owl just stared at her silently. "Well, I'm not about to let my friends' whole world fall apart. I guess it's time to leave and figure out what the heck we are going to do."

She held out her had again for the bird and he climbed onto her forearm so she could sit up. She walked to the mirror and called Hoggle.

When his face appeared, she held out the arm with the owl on it. "Hoggle, I found your King."

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_a/n: Please R/R, I would just adore it!_


	2. A Queen's First Magic

_A/N: Here you go, another chapter to tide you over even though I only intended to do one today. My generosity knows no bounds! _

Disclaimer: I do not own any characters from the movie Labyrinth. The Labyrinth characters and events in the movies belong to Jim Henson, may he rest in peace as his legacy lives on through all of us. I seek to make no profit from this venture and I promise to return everything back the way I found it. 

* * *

Set Me Free  
Story by Jessica Arbuckle (Jessi, Princess of Impatience)  
June - undetermined, 2005

**Chapter Two, A Queen's First Magic…**

Hoggle stared out at them from the mirror in shock. 

"He's still a blasted bird? Why?" he said, appearing next to them. He looked up sourly at the owl and it snapped at him, climbing up to Sarah's shoulder to glare imperiously down at the dwarf. 

"Oh, stop it," she scolded the bird with a tap on his talon. "I know what you are probably wishing you could say and you two will get along." She turned to Hoggle. 

"Apparently, my dear friend, it seems as though the Goblin King has gotten him and I into quite a pickle. Apparently in saving Toby, I turned him permanently into an owl and became the new Queen of the Goblins." Sarah shuddered and the owl hooted with annoyance at the disturbance. 

"The story is true?" Hoggle said furiously, looking from Sarah to the owl and back again. 

"You _knew_ about his?" Sarah said angrily. She turned her head to glance at the owl. "I already know you knew about this. Couldn't either of you have seen fit to just say something?" Hoggle grumbled as the owl flapped his wings, sending her an indignant look. 

However, only Hoggle could speak his indignation. "Yeah, but I didn't think it was true! I thought it was just a story." 

"No," Sarah said, leaning forward to open the drawer to her vanity and pulling out the red book. "This was supposed to be 'just a story' too and look where we all ended up," she said hotly, but relented at Hoggle's sad look. 

"Oh, Hoggle, what's done is done," she said softly, laying her hand on his shoulder. The bird on her shoulder made an odd choking sound as Sarah turned her head in panic. She was greeted by mismatched eyes that were sparkling with open humor. 

"Oh, what's so funny now?" she growled, thinking back over the last moments until she recalled what she just said. She glared at the owl and muttered under her breath as she gave him a sharp poke in the chest. She instantly regretted it when she saw the bird wince. 

"Oh dear, I am so very sorry Jareth!" she cried, reaching up to transfer the bird to her forearm as she gently stroked his head and back. The owl's eyes closed briefly and she panicked, fearing the worst. 

"Hoggle, do you know how to fix bird wounds?" she asked, daring to cradle the bird close to her body. 

"Lemme see him," Hoggle said gruffly and Sarah sank to the floor, bringing the owl on level with the dwarf. Hoggle's rough fingers tentatively examined the wound. "This isn't too bad, but I fear he's lost a bit of blood from it reopening. But Sarah, if you are the Goblin Queen, you can fix him. I'm thinking we have to go back home first, though," Hoggle said. 

"Fine, let's go, I can always come back after he's fixed and tell my family some story about where I am going," she said, cradling the bird against her chest again. The weight of him seemed to increase and she looked down to find his eyes closed and his breathing shallow. 

"Let's go now! Hoggle, how do I do it?" she asked anxiously, Hoggle already just a reflection in the mirror. 

"Look past me and see the room. Concentrate on the spot right in front of you beyond the mirror and think about it and you'll be there," Hoggle prompted. 

Sarah looked into the mirror, amazed that she could now see what must be Hoggle's home. She concentrated on the empty chair in front of her and suddenly, she was in it. 

She rose quickly, looking at Hoggle. "Ok, how do I fix him?" 

Hoggle looked nervous. "I don't really know. I just figured it had something to do with those crazy balls." 

Sarah thought back to all the times she had seen Jareth with a crystal, how it had effortlessly appeared in his hand. She shifted the unconscious bird in her arms to free her hand and she looked own at her palm. 'I need something to heal Jareth,' she thought desperately and in a flash, one of the crystals appeared in her hand, the weight of it cool and warm all at once. The feel of it made her skin itch crazily and she wonder in passing if that was the reason he always wore the gloves. Before her skin could itch out of control, or grow any hotter or colder than it was right now, she touched the crystal to the owl's wound. It burst and as it did, she saw the wound begin to close and the crusts of blood in the snowy white feathers disappear. In a matter of a minute, the wound was gone. 

She sighed in relief as the owl blinked sleepily up at her and struggled faintly. She collapsed in the chair, exhausted by the effort of calling up the crystal, and placed the bird on her knee. He crept up her leg close to her and reached up, nuzzling her cheek gently with his hard beak as his mismatched eyes glowed with gratitude. She smiled down at him, stroking his soft feathers unconsciously as she fell asleep almost instantly. 

"Well, you've certainly got us all in a predicament, haven't you Jareth?" Hoggle said and the bird swiveled his head sharply, snapping his beak. 

"Oh, don't snap at me you overblown bit of fluff. I just hope she is going to be able to handle all of this, especially when she figures out the truth of the way to hand back all of this that's been dumped on her." The owl's eyes narrowed and Hoggle smiled grimly. "Oh yes sirree, I knows. Just as I knows none of us can help her, not even you, even if you could find a way." 

The owl turned his head back to regard Sarah's sleeping form. Hoggle walked forward, also gazing at her. 

"Oh, don't you worry, I knows she can handle it. She's got this way about her, that makes you want to follow her just because she's so brave and warm and… good," Hoggle said softly, his eyes meeting the owl's. "O'course, you knew that already. You'd be blind not to. I'm sure once she gets the hang of all that magic, she'll shine like the Queen she was meant to be." 

The owl hooted softly and Hoggle smiled. "Don't ask me how, but I knows you agree. Odd I can understand you better as a bird than as a person. Maybe being a bird is doing you some good?" Hoggle asked. 

The owl shrieked, beating his wings as Hoggle began to laugh. The noise drew Sarah from her short slumber and she opened her eyes to find the owl staring at her. 

"Are you ok now?" she asked worriedly, sitting up straight. The owl hooted softly and turned so Sarah could see his side. There wasn't a mark left on him, not even a feather out of place. "Good, I was so worried about you," she admitted before closing her mouth quickly. What in the world had made her admit that out loud? The owl gave her a startled look before quickly covering it with an unreadable expression. 

She held out her arm to him so he could grasp it. "I really need to go back and give some kind of excuse, so maybe you could just wait here? Of course, I have no idea what kind of excuse to give them." 

The owl flapped his wings and stared at her hard. She stared back, knowing he was trying to tell her something important. What she wouldn't give to be able to understand animals right now. 

"What, do you have an idea? I can't imagine what kind of excuse you would think might work. If only I had some way to convince them any story I make up is the truth." The owl screeched sharply and she grinned. "That's it, isn't it? I can use one of those crystals to create some kind of story that they will be forced to believe?" He flapped his wings and ruffled his feathers, clearly pleased she had caught on. 

"Alright then, down you go while I concentrate," she said as she lowered her arm so her could perch on the arm of the chair. Once he was settled, she concentrated on her open palm. 'I want my parents to think they've sent me off to a special acting private school where I live on campus.' A crystal appeared and with it, the itchy cold-hot sensation. 

"Ok, I'm going now before this thing fries my skin," she said, quickly walking to the mirror and appearing on the other side. 

Once again in her room, she went quickly to her door and opened it, crossing to the hallway of her parents' bedroom. There her father, stepmother and brother slept peacefully. She blew the crystal out of her hand and it circled the room before silently popping, sending showers of a sparkly material down on the three of them. She sighed, going in to first place a kiss on her father's head and then on her brother's cheek. She patted her stepmother's hand gently. 

"I'll miss you all so much, but I promise to come back and visit," she whispered before closing their door and returning to her room. She took one last look at it and went to the mirror, about to go through it when she paused. 

"Merlin," she cried and ran out of the room. A few minutes later, she came back, a shaggy gray and white dog at her heels. She was itching her hand again. 

"I can't believe I almost forgot about you! I'm so sorry boy," she said, patting his head. "Let's just hope they believe dogs are allowed at this school I've made up." She grinned down at the dog and he barked. 

"Shh, you'll wake them up. Ok, let's see if I can try this with a large passenger," she said, grabbing his collar firmly in her hand and stared at a spot just in front of the chair before appearing on that side. She marveled at how easy it was already becoming, even with Merlin in tow. 

She smiled at Hoggle and the owl, who sat silently looking between her and the dog. The owl flapped nervously and Sarah laughed. 

"Oh Jareth, calm down, Merlin couldn't hurt a fly if he even wanted to!" The sheepdog moved forward, sniffing Hoggle curiously. Hoggle reached out and patted his head quickly and Merlin licked his hand, moving towards the owl. The bird's feathers were fluffed up, making him look almost twice the size he normally was. He froze as the dog began to sniff him. Merlin whined quietly before poking the bird forcefully in the chest with his nose and letting forth a joyous bark. 

"See," Sarah said, coming to stand next to the owl, "he likes you!" She laughed when the owl gave her a baleful look. "Ok, I get it, you aren't thrilled he's four times your size. Well, let's go wrangle some goblins… and track down some of those fancy gloves," she said, itching her palm.

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_a/n: Please R/R, I would just adore it!_


End file.
